Medical Malpractice

What is Medical Malpractice?

When you or a family member are ill, injured, or need medical assistance (such as a pregnancy), you are dependent on your doctors, nurses, therapists, hospitals, and the medical community to help you.

The vast majority of these healers live up to your trust. Sadly, some do not, and then you are left to live with the consequences of what they did to you or how they failed to protect you. When these individuals leave you injured you need to have a top medical malpractice attorney in Los Angeles working tirelessly to get you the compensation you deserve, and that is where top Los Angeles law firm, Heimberg Barr, can help.

According to recent studies, as many as 98,000 or more Americans die each year from preventable medical errors made by hospitals, doctors and other medical professionals (Institute of Medicine; To Err is Human; Building a Safer Health System, 2000). Far more Americans die each year from medical errors than from car accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297), or AIDS (16,516).

The law recognizes that a medical professional can make an error. However, a medical mistake becomes medical malpractice whenever the care of a patient falls below accepted community standards and causes a patient’s injury or death.

Types of Medical Malpractice

As a medical doctor and a personal injury lawyer, Steven Heimberg has extensive knowledge of both medicine and the law, bringing far more to the table than typical medical malpractice attorneys. At Heimberg Barr LLP, our legal professionals have successful track record representing injured people in a range of medical malpractice cases.

Thanks to modern medicine, birth is a lot safer now for both mother and baby than it was in previous centuries. However, it is not an easy process, and many infants suffer unavoidable minor injuries at birth, from which they usually recover rapidly on their own.

Sadly, some babies suffer serious injuries at birth that could have been avoided had the attending doctor provided the accepted standard of care. When the infant’s brain is deprived of oxygen and essential nutrients during labor and delivery as a result of a medical error, it can have long-term consequences for the child – and the entire family. If your child was injured at birth due to medical negligence, our birth injury attorneys in Los Angeles will work closely with you advocate for your right to fair compensation, and supply the needed financial support that will be needed to meet the challenges ahead.

Continually advancing technology has given us a vast array of medical devices for treatment of a wide range of health conditions and cosmetic purposes. Some examples are hip and knee replacements, pacemakers, transvaginal mesh, insulin pumps, and breast implants.

Unfortunately, some of these devices are found to be defective only after being used in medical procedures for years. Every year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posts a list of the most serious medical device recalls – those that could cause serious injuries or death.

With Steven Heimberg’s background as a medical doctor, we have deep insight into the full extent of injuries that can be caused by defective medical devices. We have an in-depth knowledge of both the legal and medical issues, and years of experience representing injured clients against insurance companies and their teams of lawyers.

With the aging population, elder abuse has become a widespread problem in the U.S. According to the National Council on Aging (NCOA), one in every 10 Americans age 60 or older has experienced some form of elder abuse. Abuse can be physical, emotional, or sexual, or it can occur in the form of financial exploitation, confinement, willful deprivation, or passive neglect.

Elder abuse is sadly, a common occurrence in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. If you or your loved one has suffered elder abuse, our top team of elder abuse lawyers in Los Angeles can provide the legal assistance you need.

Insurance bad faith on the part of an HMO or medical business can have disastrous consequences for the insured. Among other examples, it can take the form of postponing medical treatment, failure to inform the patient of needed treatment or tests, ending medical treatment too soon, failure to inform the patient of benefits and risks, or providing partial treatment but not to the extent needed.

Our medical malpractice attorneys are not afraid to take on insurance companies for medical business misconduct. We know the medical and legal issues involved and what it takes to hold responsible parties accountable for their actions.

Big Pharma (the prescription drug industry) is a booming business, with billions of dollars a year spent on advertising alone. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the responsibility of protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of drugs released on the market. However, FDA approved drugs are found to be defective or dangerous and recalled on a regular basis. We hold big pharmaceutical companies accountable for prescription drug injuries caused to our clients.

Filing a lawsuit can never bring back a loved one who has died because of someone else’s negligence or wrongdoing. It can serve to hold responsible parties accountable and relieve financial hardships for those who are left behind.

Wrongful death can result from any number of causes, including automobile accidents, medical malpractice, dangerous prescription drugs, defective medical devices, aviation accidents, and failure to respond to an emergency. If you have lost a loved one in a case of wrongful death, our wrongful death attorneys in Los Angeles at Heimberg Barr LLP will stand by your side to pursue compensation and justice for your loved one.

What Distinguishes Us From Other Firms That Handle Personal Injury Cases?

Senior Partner Steven Heimberg is both a Doctor and a Lawyer. This provides numerous advantages, including:

Better ability to understand medical intricacies;

Increased ability to maximize medical-care damages;

Enhanced ability to retain and to prepare medical experts;

Superior ability to respond (particularly in trial) to unusual or doubtful positions taken by opposing medical experts.

Making a Difference

Heimberg Barr has among the top medical malpractice lawyers in Los Angeles and California. They have led the fight to change the law in medical cases to make it more fair to the injured victims. Landmark changes in medical cases engineered by Heimberg Barr include:

Limiting the defendants eligible to benefit from MICRA*

Limiting the scope of conduct covered by MICRA

Shifting the evidentiary burden for claims of MICRA eligibility onto the defendants

Limiting the use of arbitration agreements in medical litigation

Expanding the causes of action available against medical entities

Using the laws to maximize the amount actually recovered after verdict in medical cases

Medical malpractice claims can be made against doctors, nurses, midwives, therapists, chiropractors, technicians, HMOs, hospitals, clinics, and other medical businesses.

However, be aware that there are strict time limits you must meet to file a lawsuit. These time limits are complex and strictly enforced by the courts. It is in your best interest to speak to an attorney as soon as possible.

Reasons to File a Case

You not only deserve to be compensated for your pain and suffering and the loss of enjoyment of life but, most importantly, you deserve to be free from your new financial hardships. You may no longer be able to work to support yourself and your family, to pay for your mounting medical bills, or afford the extra costs of hiring help to do what you can no longer do around the house.

Payment for your or a family member’s injuries or for the unnecessary death of a loved one is often critical to your and your family’s future.

Yet, in most cases, you will face an army of lawyers, an entire department at an insurance company and the resources of a mega-corporation fighting you in order to avoid providing you the money you desperately need. In other words, their whole focus is to avoid claims or to settle with you for the least amount of money possible.

Hospitals, clinics and doctors have insurance which provides them with attorneys whose job it is to do everything possible to prevent them from having to pay for medical malpractice. If you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, you need lawyers on your side with the knowledge and experience to beat them.

Contact Us for a Free Consultation

If you think you or a family member is a victim of medical malpractice, contact us for a free consultation from one of the best medical malpractice lawyers Los Angeles has to offer.

* Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975

Contact us for a free consultation
It costs nothing to find out how we can help you